


this is the last time

by wolfchester



Series: love song for no one [1]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: F/M, but don't worry it gets better, includes hawkeyes fighting and kate leaving, kind of sad, like written as a story and not just dialogue, this is basically hawkeye annual number one fleshed out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 09:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1773592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchester/pseuds/wolfchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is a futzin’ idiot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is the last time

**Author's Note:**

> (this is what kate and clint were fighting about before she skipped town in hawkeye annual #1)
> 
> ((part 1 of the ‘love song for no one’ series))

“I gotta get out of here for a little while.”

Kate’s voice travels to his ears from down the hallway. He hears the soft thump of her Nikes on the wooden floor before he sees her: black hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a purple crop top and tight black leggings. She's got a dangerous look in her blue eyes--the kind that lets Clint know she's deadly serious.

“Do what you gotta do.” He looks back down at his cereal, twirling the spoon around in the milk.

There's a moment of heated silence before she cracks, words tumbling out of her mouth in a cascade of hurt and anger. “I can’t stick around and watch you do this to yourself anymore! Things are hard, terrible, things are terrible: you _stick together_. _Real people_ would stick together. You don’t hole up and shut everybody _out_. And--Are you even listening to me?”

He sighs. “Please, just. Just stop talking. I can’t--Hey! Where are you taking my stuff?”

“This stuff is my stuff.”

“You had that much stuff over here?” She shrugs. Clint gets this kind of ache in his chest, like the feeling you get when you eat something too fast and it sticks in your throat. He hadn't even realised just _how much_ time she'd spent at his apartment instead of the one she shares with her team. She has, like,  _three_ duffel bags of clothes and who knows what else. “Whatever.”

At his nonchalance, she explodes, leaning over the kitchen counter to yell in his face. “I can’t watch you completely lose it anymore, Clint! I can’t just _sit_ here as you throw your life away because you need someone to _yell_ at as it happens! You made a decision to make this place your home, to make these people your family. You can’t just _bail_ when it gets hard!”

He's startled at her outburst at first, because he knew Katie had a temper, but he'd never seen her so fired up about something--about _him_. But he regains his calm, unfussed exterior and shrugs, looking up at her with a snarky grin. “So, what? Back to Midtown? Back to daddy’s?”

“Go to hell.”

He shovels in another spoonful of cereal. “Okay. But, seriously, that’s my quiver.”

Kate lifts up the case and points to her initials--"KB"--on the bottom of it. “My quiver, genius.”

Clint raises his eyebrows. “Well I put some of _myyyy_ arrows in there. Some of the weird ones, so be careful. A _remote explosive_ one. Or ten. There’s a little keyfob-jobby thing you--” He sighs, then takes a sip of his coffee and says under his breath: “--just don’t blow your head off or try taking it on any planes.”

She narrows her eyes. “Got it, great, good. Go screw."

She's starting to walk out of his apartment for _real_ now, and it's all a bit much for Clint. Because, c'mon, this is Katie. This is his girly-girl, his Hawkeye, his partner. She can't just--just _walk out_ on him like this. He needs her. “But seriously, Katie-Kate, where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Los Angeles maybe.”

He scoffs. “Great idea. Because the West Coast totally needs a _Hawkeye_.”

She pauses in the doorway and closes her eyes, taking one deep breath. Then: “C’mon, Lucky.”

The dog scrambles to his feet and follows Kate out the door. Out of his life.

“Hey. _Hey!_ " He practically leaps off of his chair and out the door. "You’re not my _girlfriend_! You can't--you can’t just take my _dog_!" Neither of them give him a second glance. _**"Who the hell do you think you are?!”**_

She ignores him, and then she's out of sight but not out of mind and he's left staring at an empty corridor, back facing an empty apartment.

Clint stands there in silence for a minute or two, weighing up the reality of this situation. What is he supposed to do _now_? What is he supposed to do with an empty dog food bowl, with a couch made for two when there's only one of him?

The sound of Barney trudging down the stairs wakes him from his helpless state. Clint turns to his brother and scratches his dead defeatedly as Barney looks at him with a mildly curious glance.

“She took my dog, man.”

His brother shrugs. “Dunno. Looks like the dog _left_ , t’me.”

She left her toothbrush behind, and it sits in it's holder next to his on the bathroom counter. The throw blanket on the couch still smells like lilacs. Lucky's food bowl remains empty and Clint stops drinking coffee out of his Hawkeye mug, because what's one Hawkeye without the other?

 

**end**


End file.
